In late April I was working remotely from Allison’s office (we work for the same institution) and saw the sweetest dog in need of a foster through Angels Among Us, an organization with which I regularly volunteer. This pup had been hit by a car and attacked by another dog, and then had developed pneumonia post-rescue while in vet boarding. The kid needed a quiet place to recover. Allison eyed me suspiciously. She said she could see Sane Shannan and Crazy Shannan duking it out for control of my brain.

She gets me.

I don’t normally foster dogs – I’m not set up for it – but I volunteered to foster this sweet pup through his recovery period while they looked for another foster for the longterm.

The heart-melting, exhausting adventure of fostering sweet Brittin is a story reserved for a pub night. This is a blog about knitting and whiskey, and the important thing you need to know is that after sipping my nightly dram, I absent-mindedly left my Hitchhiker project on the couch while I went to the bathroom. Brittin thought it was a new toy. C’est la vie.

So what we have here is not a May post about a quick and easy project, but rather a June post about how sometimes a split-second decision flips your plans upside down and inside out. And what seemed simple becomes all tangled up. And that’s okay.

Each night when I sit down to knit, I start by taking some time to work on untangling the jumble that is my Hitchhiker yarn, and as I do, I meditate on the mess. Maybe I’ll be able to unknot the jumble and create the project I originally envisioned. Maybe I won’t. It’s unclear at the moment, so I’m just working slowly and seeing what develops.

The tangle reminds me of the sweet puppy who lived with me for a time, who broke my heart wide open and freed me to deal with some mess in my own life that I had put in a box until I was ready to deal with it.

Brittin is now with his permanent foster and available for adoption. I — and my shawlette — are forever changed by the experience of knowing him and getting to be a part of his journey. As I tease out each maddening knot, I see the expression on his face when I dove for my yarn – no hint of mischief, just joy and innocence and love – and I am grateful for the entirety of what he left behind.

3 thoughts on “Tangled”

Our animal friends do leave behind such messes, and such love, and such lessons about how messy love is. I hope you can get that yarn untangled . . . bring it with you to Whiskeyknitting and I will work on it for you. I have a lot of experience after six cats, one dog, and twop children.